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Close-up of crankshaft pulley and woodruff key. Rotate the crankshaft
clockwise until the notch in the crankshaft pulley lines up with the
arrow. Once every 2 crankshaft revolutions, when the notch and arrow
is lined up, the 2 Mazda scribe marks on the camshaft pulleys will
point straight up.
It's very, very important to mark how things go together before
replacing the belt.
I marked both the belt and pulley with white-out at 4 points: one each where the belt meets the intake and exhause camshaft pulleys, and two at the crankshaft pulley. I also used the Enthusiasts Manual tip of putting a straight edge between the center of the crankshaft bolt and each of the two camshaft pulley bolts, and then scribing a mark on the outer edge of both pulleys. This gives you yet another reference mark to check for. The book said that this eliminates error you might get if you simply eye-balled Mazda's scribe marks to check if they were vertical. When installing the new new timing belt, transfer the white out marks on the old belt to the new belt. When you put the new belt on, make sure these marks line up with the white out marks you left on the camshaft pulleys and the cranshaft gears. Also verify with a straight edge that the scribe marks that was left still line up. Putting everything back together again: I think I had an unorthodox way of slipping the timing belt in place when you don't have anyone helping you. First, make sure the tensioner pulley is extended to the left as far as it can to give the least tension to the timing belt. Next, I completely removed the idler wheel. Then I slipped on the timing belt making sure my whiteout marks lined up. Then I took a wrench and applied tension to the exhaust camshaft wheel slightly clockwise to give the right side of the timing belt enough slack to put the idler wheel in place. I actually ended up using zip ties to fix the wrench in place while I screwed on the idler wheel. It's exceedingly important to get everything to line up at this point when you install a new belt, because if you're off by one tooth, you're screwed and you'll only find your mistake after several hours of putting stuff back together again and starting the car. Once you begin rotating the crankshaft 2 revolutions to check if the alignment is off, your white out marks on the belt and camshaft pulleys will no longer line up, so you have to use either the straight edge marks you left on the pulley wheel, or the use Mazda's reference scribe marks and make sure their vertical. |